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<h2>Ant Foraging</h2> 
By Liviu Panait
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<p>This is a simulation of artificial ants foraging from a nest, discovering a food source in the face of obstacles, and then establishing a trail between the nest and food source.  The model uses two pheromones which set up gradients to the nest and to the food source respectively.  The pheromones evaporate as well.  You can change some of these constants.

<p>A two-pheromone model is likely not biological, but this model is based on a series of papers we did 
showing a strong relationship between ant pheromone algorithms and dynamic programming.

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<ul>
<li>http://cs.gmu.edu/~eclab/papers/panait04pheromone.pdf
<br>A Pheromone-Based Utility Model for Collaborative Foraging. Liviu Panait and Sean Luke.  In AAMAS 2004.
<li>http://cs.gmu.edu/~eclab/papers/panait04ant.pdf
<br>Ant Foraging Revisited. Liviu Panait and Sean Luke.  In ALIFE 9.
<li>http://cs.gmu.edu/~eclab/papers/panait04learning.pdf
<br>Learning Ant Foraging Behaviors. Liviu and Sean Luke.  In ALIFE 9.
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<p>For more papers, see the <a href="http://cs.gmu.edu/~eclab/">EC Lab website</a>.

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